HDFC Ergo insurance cover would protect the Formula 1 Grand Prix event against adverse weather, non-appearance of several teams, riots, strikes and civil commotion leading to cancellation of the event, its postponement or relocation.

HDFC ERGO, one of the leading private sector non-life insurance companies in India, is the lead insurer for the Formula 1 Race, which is being organized for the first time in India at New Delhi on 30 October 2011.

HDFC ERGO, in collaboration with Ace Insurance Brokers, the risk management and insurance intermediary company will provide an insurance cover of $15million.

The insurance cover would protect the Formula 1 Grand Prix event against adverse weather, non-appearance of several teams, riots, strikes and civil commotion leading to cancellation of the event, its postponement or relocation.
An adverse incident can have the potential to ruin a planned event by forcing the event to be cancelled, postponed or abandoned and when an event cannot take place as planned, the organizers often have to write off costs incurred up to the point of cancellation. These expenses include deposits, advertising and printing costs, booking fees etc. “A policy like Event Cancellation Insurance Policy is thus a savior for the organizers because it pays any irrecoverable cost or expense which have been or will be incurred in connection with the event, following a cancellation, interruption, postponement or relocation due to any of the insured perils,” said Anil Arora, director, Ace Insurance Brokers.

Anuj Tyagi, head-corporate and rural & agri business, HDFC ERGO General Insurance added "an experienced team of Underwriters and actuaries at HDFC ERGO has been able to evaluate the risks involved in event such large as Formula 1 and design insurance solution to suit the needs of insured. These types of policies are fully re-insured with international re-insurers.”

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“Headline Wholesale Price Index (WPI) inflation is likely to stay around 9% till November, beyond which we expect it to moderate to reach 6.8% in March 2012, primarily due to base effects,” the agency said in the latest edition of its ‘Asia Economic Alert’

New Delhi: Research firm Nomura has said it expects inflation in India to remain elevated at around 9% till November, before moderating to around 6.8% by end of the current financial year, reports PTI.

“Headline Wholesale Price Index (WPI) inflation is likely to stay around 9% till November, beyond which we expect it to moderate to reach 6.8% in March 2012, primarily due to base effects,” the agency said in the latest edition of its ‘Asia Economic Alert’.

The base effect in economic terminology refers to a statistical phenomenon in which a low rate of inflation, or any other indicator like sales, during a corresponding period prior to that under review would make a small change in the period under review appear large.

Similarly, in case of a high base during a given year, a large change in absolute terms would appear small during the corresponding period under review.

Headline inflation in the country has been above the 9% mark since December 2010.

Nomura said the moderation in inflation numbers will start to show from December, when it expects the rate of price rise to fall to 8%.

Headline inflation stood at 9.72% in September, the latest month for which data is available. The government and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) had earlier said that they expect inflation to remain at an elevated level till the first half of the year and then show signs of moderation.

Experts, however, have said that inflation is unlikely to fall much in the near future.

“Encouragingly, core inflation has steadily moderated over the past few months. Looking ahead, we expect this trend to continue as both domestic demand and external demand are likely to weaken further,” Nomura said.

Core inflation, as measured by the rate of price rise of non-food manufactured items, declined marginally to 7.69% in September from 7.79% in August. It had touched a high of 7.90% in June.

Regarding the RBI’s likely course of action, Nomura said: “We maintain that there will be no further hikes in policy rates by the RBI. Since developments over the past few months indicate that core inflation has moderated, domestic demand has weakened considerably. And the near-term outlook for the global economy remains weak.”

However, at the central bank’s meeting at Jaipur last week, RBI governor D Subbarao had said the rate hikes have affected industrial activities, but asserted that inflation continues to remain above comfort levels. He also said that interest rates would come down only if inflation eased.

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Dr Subramanian Swamy’s blog says that the next meeting of the Action Committee Against Corruption in India will be held in Delhi on 3rd November to discuss the proposals for recovering the amounts in the alleged illegal accounts of politicians, businessmen and others in secret accounts abroad, and other topics connected with eradication of corruption from India

Dr Subramanian Swamy has always taken a lead in the 2G spectrum case investigations. He began by writing letters to the Prime Minister about the involvement of A Raja, former telecom minister in the Union Cabinet. Today, he is working alongside the CBI (Central Bureau of Investigation) and the Supreme Court (SC) to ensure that all the wrongdoers are punished.

The SC reserved its verdict on examining the alleged role of home minister
P Chidambaram (PC) in the 2G scam case. And now, additional documents have been submitted to the SC to show how the finance ministry under him permitted Swan, a ‘front’ company of Anil Ambani’s Reliance Telecom, to offload its shares in the nick of time to make it eligible for the 2G spectrum licence.

Petitioners Subramanian Swamy and Prashant Bhushan in the documents and their written submissions submitted to a bench of justices GS Singhvi and AK Ganguly drew the attention of the court to the fact that finance ministry under PC had given clearance to Swan for offloading shares in favour of UAE-based Etisalat and Mauritius based Delphi (9.9% stake).

The CBI submitted to the trial court that Anil Ambani “is a majority shareholder and chairman of Reliance Telecom, and Swan was a company set up by it with Rs1,000 crore fund as disguise” to enable Reliance to get 2G licence for GSM service in 20 circles where it was operating CDMA service.

Similar permission was allegedly allowed by the then finance minister to Unitech to offload its equity in favour of Telenor, the petitioners’ documents stated. This was the reason why CBI had roped in Reliance’s three top officials—Gautam Doshi, Hari Nair and Surendra Pipara, Swan’s Vinod Goenka and Unitech's Sanjay Chandra as alleged co-conspirators with Raja, his private secretary RK Chandolia and the then telecom secretary Siddhartha Behuria, the papers said.

According to Dr Swamy, “Chidambaram had advised Raja that it was legal to ‘dilute’ the shares (mentioned in interlocutory application No 24 on page 13). Swan Telecom and Unitech got a huge bonanza according to the CBI by releasing their 45% and 60% equity respectively to two blacklisted firms—Etisalat and Telenor.”

Dr Swamy has not stopped with his submissions to the SC. According to his blog, the next meeting of the Action Committee Against Corruption in India (ACACI) will be held in New Delhi on 3rd November to discuss the proposals prepared by the Committee members on how civil society can recover the amounts in the illegal accounts of politicians, businessmen and others in secret banking abroad and other topics connected with matters concerning eradication of corruption from India.

Finally, Dr Swamy has also planned a protest in New York near the Indian Consulate. He has requested “like-minded” men and women of Indian origin to come to the protest venue.